In the past week, a number of anti-Semitic incidents occurred around the continent. A shooting outside Copenhagen’s central synagogue resulted in the death of a Jewish volunteer guard on Sunday. The attack came hours after a fatal shooting at a free speech event, featuring the Danish cartoonist Lars Vilks, who is under police protection because of his cartoons caricaturing the Prophet Muhammad. Last weekend also saw the desecration of cemeteries in both Germany and France. These are just the last in a spate of recent attacks, that have led to a growing sense of fear and unease in Jewish Diaspora communities.

National Director of the Anti-Defamation League Abe Foxman, one of the most well-known figures in the fight against anti-Semitism, joined the Frontlines Podcast by phone from New York to discuss the issue of anti-Semitism in Europe. He said that while the US was traumatized by 9/11, Europe has not yet had its “9/11 moment,” and only this would cause Europe “to wake up, to protect it’s democracy and freedoms, and in this way it would directly or indirectly protect its Jewish community.”

Addressing the battle between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and leaders of European countries over whether Jews should move to Israel or stay in their diaspora homelands, Foxman stated that Jewish departure from Europe would be a “posthumous victory for Hitler, and would fulfil his Judenrein vision.